How to attract wildlife to your garden
Do you want to create a wildlife paradise? Here are five top tips to attract wildlife to your garden and enjoy these lovely creatures. Thompson's Garden Centre offers a wide range of various bird feeders, bird tables, hedgehog houses, seeds and foods, birdhouses and more. Please visit one of our locations and design a wildlife-friendly garden.
1. Stop cleaning your garden
This may sound a little crazy, but wildlife is attracted by bushy grown gardens. A perfectly neat garden with raked lawns is no natural environment for wildlife like birds, hedgehogs and squirrels. If you want to enjoy more animals in your garden, you should stop mowing, raking and cleaning your garden, especially in autumn and winter. The colder months are hard times for wildlife, as everyone is preparing their gardens for winter. We kindly ask you to leave your garden a bit messy, to attract nesting birds, overwintering hedgehogs and soon to be butterflies.
2. Plant wildlife-friendly plants, trees and shrubs
Wildlife likes a wide choice of places to shelter, nest, hide from predators and eat. Besides bird food, you can also plant bird-friendly, butterfly-friendly and bee-friendly plants in your garden. By planting trees, you will attract birds, squirrels and insects. We have a fantastic range of small trees for your garden. You can choose between the Silber birch, wild cherry, dogwood or dog rose. Vary in height and flowering season to create a mix of wildlife-friendly plants, trees and shrubs. Visit our garden centres for a wide range of wildlife-friendly plants, like:
- Lavender
- Foxgloves
- Oregano
- Geranium
- Sedum
- Achillea
- Buddleja
- Sage
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3. Create a place to hide
Although you want to attract as many creatures to your garden as possible, wildlife wouldn’t be wildlife if they weren’t each other’s enemies. So, think of the fact that you have to offer a spot to hide from predators. You want to feed garden birds, but also want to grow caterpillars without them being picked by the garden birds. Therefore, we have several birdhouses, insect hotels, hedgehog houses and even butterfly houses. Discover our range and offer different shelters for different wildlife.
4. Offer a water source
Wildlife wouldn’t survive without fresh water. Every season, they need fresh water. You can offer this by placing a bird table, water bowl or a pond. We offer ready-made options at our garden centre, varying in size, material and price.
- Keep your water source clean, remove fallen leaves, debris and poop on time to avoid diseases.
- Make sure it’s topped up during hot summers as well as cold winters. Check your water source daily.
- Create a ramp on at least one side so animals can get out of the water easily.
- Place it near plants or trees, so wildlife can approach from and escape to safe over.
5. Offer extra food
Besides berries from shrubs and trees, you can offer your wildlife an extra meal by serving different types of seeds. Putting out extra food for wildlife can be a huge help for them, especially during hard weather conditions. We have a large range of wildlife foods for you. Please visit our garden centres.
Buy wildlife garden products at Thompson's
We look forward to welcoming you to one of our garden centres. You can find our locations on our locations page. If you're looking for a specific product, please ask our staff or give us a call.